California Biographies
Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)
History By Paul E. Vandor
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186
Transcribed by Peggy Hooper
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
W. W. WARD.� Born at Sandusky, Ohio, on January 24. 1852, W. W.
Ward was the son of John and Mary (Lantz) Ward, natives of Ohio and
Pennsylvania, but who were married in Ohio. When very young, the lad left
Sandusky with his parents and came to Toledo, where he remained for two
years; and after that he was brought to Iowa and there John Ward farmed
until, in 1860, he crossed the great plains, being four months and four days
in ox teams on the trails. The party which consisted of the father, mother
and six children, started from the Missouri River with two ox teams. Some
of the seven children in this family were born in Ohio ; some in Iowa ; and
one in California. The parents settled at Stockton, where they camped
under a big oak tree ; and that hospitable old tree continued to be their home
while the father, practically bankrupt, worked out for one dollar a day.
W. W. Ward, the second eldest child, and the oldest now living, attended
the public schools in Iowa and California ; but as soon as he was able, he
also worked out to. help the family, and for five or six years before he was
twenty-one, he gave all his earnings to his father; and after he had reached
maturity, he continued to work for others. When at last he had made and
saved a little money, he struck out for himself.
At the age of twenty-four he bought 160 acres near Stockton, eight miles
to the southeast of the town, agreeing to pay $4,000 for the same ; and since
he could deposit but $500, he thus went into debt to the amount of $3,500.
To get the latter, amount, he paid one and a half per cent, interest a month ;
and to command the interest, he worked out besides working on his own
ranch. That summer he bought an old header for sixty dollars; and with the
same he cut 1,100 acres of grain, from the proceeds of which he paid for the
header and had some five hundred dollars to spare, in addition to the crop
he had cut. He raised a crop on this farm, and made an additional payment
of $500 on it ; and then he sold the whole for $5,600.
With the profit thus realized, Mr. Ward made the first cash-down pay-
ment on a 480-acre tract which he purchased for $8,000; a tract lying twelve
miles east of Stockton ; and having kept it for three years, and improved it,
he disposed of that for $22,500.
The next year, 1883, he went to Texas with the intention of going into
the cattle business ; but while looking around for the best opportunity to
invest, and boarding at the National Hotel at Dallas, he accepted an offer
to buy the hostelry, and ran it for ten months. Then he sold the hotel for
$3,000 and came back to California, the only place, he thought, to have
a real home.
He visited two brothers at Kingsburg, and was induced to buy a hotel
there; taking charge, in 1884, of the Welch Hotel, which he managed for
five years. He also began to buy and sell land ; and he has since then bought
and sold numerous farms and has also engaged extensively in the cattle
business, in which he has been successful. Now he owns 800 acres in Kings
and Tulare Counties, and although he has sold everything else except his
little house in Kingsburg, where he lives, he is rated the richest man in that
prosperous town.
About the time of the early eighties, Mr. Ward was married to Miss Julia
Gann of Stockton, near which city she had been born ; but this devoted wife
died soon after he came back to Kingsburg, in 1884. She left four children �
Charles H., now a rancher at Kingsburg; Josie, the wife of M. C. Hust, also
a rancher of Kingsburg; Ivy, the wife of Vincent Marker, living at Stockton;
and Lois, the wife of W. W. Causey, with her home near Kingsburg. For the
second time, in 1884, Mr. Ward was married, then choosing Miss Rachel
Kerrick, a native of Stockton, as his wife. Mrs. Ward is known for her
charming qualities as a neighborly woman, and Mr. Ward locally famous
as a good-natured, sympathetic business man and capable of telling a good
story.